No Reason To Panic With New Recorded COVID Case
Our latest case of coronavirus is no reason to panic. In fact it is a reason to celebrate our border containment efforts.
We do not have to look far, but at New Zealand.
Here it took only one positive person who had returned from the United Kingdom and took a road trip to attend a funeral and before we knew it the number of confirmed cases had gone up to double digits.
Now Australia is going into localised lock downs. This is something we had done months ago when we locked down specific parts of the country to contain active cases. Government had locked down Lautoka, part of Nabua and Soasoa in Labasa. Fiji had led the charge in localised lock downs in the South Pacific and now our neighbours seem to have taken a leaf out of our books. The border between Victoria and New South Wales will close today.
Our new case is a returnee from India. India is third in the list of countries fighting against COVID-19 and records dozens of cases almost daily.
The fact that this gentleman and his son together with 107 other Travellers have been kept in a Government-funded quarantine facility, which is a few hotels in Nadi, shows how seriously Government is taking the containment efforts and is not sparing any expense to keep the Fijian public safe from any imported cases.
Why can’t we shut our border? These returning Fijians have a right to be back home. Government recognises the fact that many of these people would face financial difficulties and at risk of getting the virus if they are not brought back. But given how well our health officials and Republic of Fiji Military Forces teams have worked together to keep track of all returning Fijians, there is no risk of any local transmission.
The virus is mutating too, but Fiji has been very well prepared to foot the bill of our returning citizens and they should be grateful for this. Countries like New Zealand has had slip ups in containing their returning citizens. Fiji has been learning from the mistakes of other countries and has been careful not to repeat those here.
Entire credit for this goes to decisive leadership of Voreqe Bainimarama and people who have really stepped up like Dr Alisha Sahu-Khan.
Say no to panic buying:
There is no reason for anyone to hold their children back from returning to school or to get into a frenzy of panic buying. Adhering to the new normal of washing your hands, ensuring you have the careFIJI app on your phones and maintaining social distancing is enough to remain safe.
careFIJI app:
If we are to learn one lesson from New Zealand, it would be how there will always be that one chance of slip up and we need to be ready for that. This is where the careFIJI app comes in handy. As we learn more about Thai virus, we see that it can remain dormant for up to three weeks.
If by any chance any returning Fijian does get that green light to go back home, and his result return as positive after 25 days, the careFIJI app will make contact tracing extremely easy. Within hours every person whose device with the app came in contact with the COVID-19 positive person, will be known and will be rapidly quarantined. If you still do not have the app on your smartphones, do not take any risks. This app can save lives- yours and your loved ones.